I found this in my coat pocket - it was a packet of crisps I bought at Bath Spa station last Sunday, so it's a good job I was going through the pockets, otherwise it would have been there until next Winter.

I'd not had these crisps before (they were all right, I suppose), but a look at the packet shows a number of things that have changed since the last time I was paying attention to crisps (how often does one pay attention to crisps?):

• The company have a website. I'm almost tempted to visit it to see what they have to say for themselves.
• These are crisps from the West Country, and proud of it.
• They were hand cooked.
• They are Sea Salted (as opposed to table salted, I suppose)
• They are not crisps at all, but Potato Chips.

But the crisps themselves were, as I say, all right. I don't see how the fact that they were hand fried trumps Machine Fried crisps - it's just holding a basket of chopped potatoes in boiling fat for a prescribed period of time. If they actually were holding the chopped potato in the fat with their hands, no basket involved, it would be impressive. Horrific, but impressive. But they're crisps, not tempura.

Similarly, unless one is especially proud of one's Devonian heritage, I don't see what difference the source of the crisps makes, other than that they've been driven a shorter distance than had they come from Harrogate.

And why Potato Chips - to make themselves seem American and upmarket?

There were meetings about this. People seriously argued and made decisions about the wording on this crisp packet, in order to upscale their perceived value, resulting in the fact that they cost 75p.

The actual product isn't actually any different from a packet of crisps, ready salted, machine fried, made somewhere indeterminate but probably Essex.

Just saying.